Paleoethnobotany

Wild rice is traditionally viewed as a staple of subsistence strategies from the Late Woodland period to the present in northern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota. but cultures elsewhere in Wisconsin also exploited the grain. Horticultural Millville phase Middle Woodland cultures at Prairie du Chien and agricultural Oneota populations at La Crosse both harvested wild rice as part of a mixed economy. The evidence and contexts for this intermittent exploitation of wild rice in southwestern Wisconsin are presented.

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Ancient seeds from archaeological sites can provide clues that are crucial for understanding and characterizing subsistence strategies. This in turn contributes to our understanding of, and explanations for, the relationship between socioeconomic systems and organization of craft production. This article will examine the relationship between rice and millets at three prehistoric sites from a regional copper-producing center in central Thailand to provide new insights into the subsistence strategy of these communities and to better understand the relationship between these crops and their introduction and use in Southeast Asia.

This paper discusses archaeobotanical remains of naked barley recovered from the Okhotsk cultural layers of the Hamanaka 2 archaeological site on Rebun Island, northern Japan. Calibrated ages (68% confidence interval) of the directly dated barley remains suggest that the crop was used at the site ca. 440-890 cal yr AD. Together with the finds from the Oumu site (north-eastern Hokkaido Island), the recovered seed assemblage marks the oldest well-documented evidence for the use of barley in the Hokkaido Region. The archaeobotanical data together with the results of a detailed pollen analysis of contemporaneous sediment layers from the bottom of nearby Lake Kushu point to low-level food production, including cultivation of barley and possible management of wild plants that complemented a wide range of foods derived from hunting, fishing, and gathering. This qualifies the people of the Okhotsk culture as one element of the long-term and spatially broader Holocene hunter-gatherer cultura...

We did this project as part of a survey for a Timber Salvage Project in Sequoia National Forest.
Citation: 1991 Archaeobotanical Remains from 05-13-52-88 (CA-TUL-569). In Cultural Resources Inventory of the Proposed Divide Salvage Area, Tule River Ranger District, Sequoia National Forest. by B. P. Wickstrom and K. Roper Wickstrom, BioSystems Analysis, Inc., Santa Cruz, CA.


Moore et al (2008) from the USGS describe these basins as follows: "Meter-size granite basins are found in a 180-km belt extending south from the South Fork of the Kings River to Lake Isabella on the west slope of the southern Sierra Nevada, California. Their origin has long been debated. A total of 1,033 basins have been inventoried at 221 sites. The basins occur on bedrock granitic outcrops at a median elevation of 1,950 m. Median basin diameter among 30 of the basin sites varies from 89 to 170 cm, median depth is 12 to 63 cm. Eighty percent of the basin sites also contain smaller bedrock mortars (~1-2 liters in capacity) of the type used by Native Americans (American Indians) to grind acorns. Features that suggest a manmade origin for the basins are: restricted size, shape, and elevation range; common association with Indian middens and grinding mortars; a south- and west-facing aspect; presence of differing shapes in distinct localities; and location in a food-rich belt with pleasant summer weather. Volcanic ash (erupted A.D. 1240+-60) in the bottom of several of the basins indicates that they were used shortly before ~760 years ago but not thereafter. Experiments suggest that campfires built on the granite will weaken the bedrock and expedite excavation of the basins. The primary use of the basins was apparently in preparing food, including acorns and pine nuts. The basins are among the largest and most permanent artifacts remaining from the California Indian civilization." https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sir20085210

Climate change, a timely topic, cannot be understood solely by analyzing modern-day ecosystems. Sediment stratigraphy from tidal marshes is an important source of paleoecological data, as these ecosystems experience high rates of deposition and preserve organic material well. Although Hudson River Valley marshes have been extensively researched, work has focused on the four areas protected by the Hudson
River National Estuarine Research Reserve (HRNERR). The marshlands of Haverstraw in Rockland County are comparable to the HRNERR sites in their capacity for biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and other important ecological functions. They are, however, understudied. This study uses loss-on-ignition and macrofossil analysis in combination with X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to construct a high-resolution
paleoenvironmental record. Biotic and geochemical zones have been identified and correlated with archaeological and historical data to assess the influence of anthropogenic activity in the area. The organic:inorganic maxima evidenced likely correspond to a preindustrial period, characterized by burning events associated with increasing populations and concentrated settlement, as well as agricultural practices. Invasive species are prevalent, but certain key native species, notably Acorus americanus (American Sweet Flag), persist today. Exponential increases in heavy metal concentrations likely result from industry in the area but have declined following cessation of this activity and introduction of unleaded gasoline. Understanding historical human impacts is vital for predicting the ramifications of future development as well as establishing protocols for conservation and restoration.

Understanding variability in prehistoric diets requires data on plant and animal remains. While zooarchaeological approaches continue to provide fine-grained information on the animal components of diet, plant use is difficult to track within a wide range of archaeological contexts. Starch grain analysis is a
proven method for identifying the taxonomic relationships of plant microfossils deposited on archaeological artifacts. Here I report on practical and methodological considerations for the application of starch research to California and Great Basin archaeobotanical remains. The study examines the feasibility of the approach in identifying plant use on a small set (n = 8) of ground stone artifacts recovered from the Leonard Hot Spring locality, Surprise Valley, northeastern California. The exercise yielded a total of 111 starch grains. Of these, 52 were
diagnostic of edible plant taxa. The possibilities for monitoring past patterns of plant consumption and variation therein through time and space are clearly indicated. The study also highlighted three requirements for greater methodological
accuracy: (1) analytical categorization of comparative samples enabling identification of species with overlapping morphological and size features, (2) expanded comparative libraries, and (3) experimental processing. Results
indicate the strength of the method in identifying plant remains where other methods are unavailable or inconclusive.

This study aims to trace changes in the River Nile flows over the Late Quaternary and is based on palynomorphs which were embedded in the sea floor of the Levantine Basin. The palynomorphs were extracted from two marine sediment cores, which cover the last 86 ka and are located at the two ends of the Levantine Basin: MD-9509, at the southern part of the Levantine Basin, and MD-9501, at its northern part. Core MD-9509 was taken from the Nile cone and is characterized by high sedimentation rates and a good state of palynomorph preservation. The assemblages included palynomorphs which were transported via the Nile headwaters and therefore enabled the reconstruction of the River Nile flows. The results demonstrate that the last glacial period (~75e16 ka) was characterized by a decrease in Nile water discharge and an increase in sediment influx, while opposite trends were observed prior to the last glacial period as well as during the deglaciation and the Holocene. Based on the study of the spores, it is suggested that during the last glacial, the main contributors of freshwater and sediment load to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea were the Blue Nile and the Atbara and only during interglacials was there a more significant contribution of the White Nile. Within the northern core, MD-9501, pollen was preserved only during the formation of sapropels S3 and S1. The comparison of the sapropelic palynological spectra in both core sites clearly indicates that during sapropel deposition, climate conditions were more humid in the Northern Levant, reflecting the north-south regional Mediterranean climatic moisture gradient. Sapropel formation was a result of the intensification of the monsoonal climate system which was most probably related to the maximum insolation values at 65 N, while, currently, the Atlantic is the main influencing climate system in the region. One of the most interesting observations in this study is that during Heinrich Events H2-H6, which originated in the north Atlantic and were identified in MD-9509 based on minimum arboreal pollen percentages, pollen originating from tropical regions was not embedded in the Levantine Basin. These results lend support to the view that episodes of dryness in tropical/sub-tropical Eastern Africa were associated not only with low-latitude climate controls, but also with high-latitude glacial stress.

The Scarcity Slot is the first book to critically examine food security in Africa’s deep past. Amanda L. Logan argues that African foodways have been viewed through the lens of ‘the scarcity slot,’ a kind of Othering based on presumed differences in resources. Weaving together archaeological, historical, and environmental data with food ethnography, she advances a new approach to building long-term histories of food security on the continent in order to combat these stereotypes. Focusing on a case study in Banda, Ghana that spans the past six centuries, The Scarcity Slot reveals that people thrived during a severe, centuries-long drought just as Europeans arrived on the coast, with a major decline in food security emerging only recently. This narrative radically challenges how we think about African foodways in the past with major implications for the future.

Enslaved African and African Americans in the American South during the 17th through 19th centuries lived within a social order established by plantation owners and reinforced through the control of food. Therefore, the ways slaves acquired their food and other subsistence goods demonstrates aspects of the plantation's social relations. This article examines the connection between slaves' subsistence strategies and plantation social relations at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest through the analysis of macrobotanical remains. Excavations at Poplar Forest uncovered a sub-floor pit of an antebellum slave cabin that was occupied from the 1840s through 1858 and possibly as late as the abolition of slavery. The seeds and wood indicate that the slaves' subsistence strategies included provisioning or receiving food from the plantation owner, production or slaves growing their own food, and procurement or the gathering of wild plants. By comparing the results from this sub-floor pit to analyses of macrobotanicals dating to Thomas Jefferson's ownership, I investigate aspects of plantation social relations at Poplar Forest and offer a better understanding of the social and natural environment in which the enslaved African Americans lived.

Archaeobotanical samples from the Lamb site (11SC24) provide an opportunity to examine early Eveland phase (A.D. 1100–1150) plant subsistence in the central Illinois River valley (CIRV). We discuss the range of plant resources exploited by the Lamb site residents as well as seasonality and site occupation. We also consider the role of maize in Eveland phase subsistence economies. The Lamb site archaeobotanical data indicate the rapid adoption of maize in the Eveland phase CIRV, although site residents continued to rely on a diverse array of native plant taxa. The primary goals of the Lamb site (11SC24) archaeobotanical analysis are to document the range of plant resources exploited by early Eveland phase (A.D. 1100–1150) inhabitants of the central Illinois River valley (CIRV) and to evaluate the role of maize in Eveland phase subsistence economies. A secondary goal of the archaeobotanical analysis is to make inferences regarding seasonality and site occupation at the Lamb site. Speculations about Eveland phase subsistence economy have largely been made in the absence of systematically collected data. With a couple of exceptions (Kuehn and Blewitt 2013; VanDerwarker et al. 2013), regional scholars have made generalizations about Mississippian subsistence strategies based on earlier Late Woodland trends or have offered comparisons to the American Bottom or other regions of Mississippian occupation. We present the results of the Lamb site macrobotanical analysis in detail and report plant data in a manner that will allow for future synchronic and diachronic comparison to other CIRV and American Bottom sites as more data become available.

This chapter addresses subsistence and the relative importance of plants among the prehistoric maritime hunter-gatherer-fishers living on California's Channel Islands. While it is clear that island populations had a decidedly maritime focus, ethnographic and archaeological data indicate that plants were used in a variety of ways. Paleoethnobotanical research, in particular, has a crucial role to play in subsistence and settlement analysis, yet has not typically been given priority in Channel Islands research. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize the extant paleoethnobotanical research conducted on the islands and present some theoretical considerations for contextualizing the role of plants. Given the ethnographic and archaeological evidence, I argue that plants were of considerable importance in subsistence, trade, and ceremonial contexts and therefore should be given careful consideration in Channel Islands research.

This volume presents the results of current paleoethnobotanical research in northeastern North America, defined here as New England, New York, and Pennsylvania (Figure 1.1). Paleoethnobotany encompasses all aspects of the investigation of prehistoric human-plant relationships from the identification and dating of plant remains to modeling the evolution of prehistoric plant communities and agriculture. The Northeast has been almost invisible as paleoethnobotany has grown to be an important discipline in Eastern Woodlands archaeology. This volume is presented as an attempt to raise the visibiity of paleoethnobotanical research being carried out in the Northeast. As such, although most of the chapters are concerned in one way or another with prehistoric agriculture, there is no single paleoethnobotanical theme guiding the volume's content.

Investigating plants used for building and craft activities is important for understanding how environments surrounding archaeological settlements were exploited, as well as for considering the social practices involved in the creation and use of plant objects. Evidence for such plant uses has been observed at many Near Eastern Neolithic sites but not widely discussed. Survival may occur in a number of ways, including as impressions in clay, and as charred or desiccated macroremains. Another, less well-known, way in which plant artifacts can be found is as silica skeletons (phytoliths). Formed by the in situ decay of plants, their analysis may tell us about taxa exploited, and locations in which plant artifacts were used or discarded. At Catalhöyük, an abundance of silicified traces of plants used in building materials and for craft activities survive, and are found in domestic and burial contexts. Their analysis demonstrates the routine use of wild plants, especially from wetland areas, for basketry (mats, baskets and cordage) and
construction, as well as the secondary use of cereal husk chaff in certain types of building materials. The numerous finds suggest that plant-based containers played an important role as an artifactual class, even after the adoption of early pottery.

This paper considers plant food subsistence at the Buzzard Rock II site (44RN2/70), a Late Woodland village located in southern Virginia at the Blue Ridge escarpment. A regional comparative analysis of the Buzzard Rock II plant assemblage highlights its broad similarity to plant assemblages from other sites in the region; Late Woodland residents of the North Carolina and Virginia Piedmonts focused their plant subsistence primarily around maize (Zea mays) and nuts, supplemented by wild fruits and weedy greens when available. An intrasite spatial analysis reveals differences in the distribution of plant remains across features at the site. While most features yielded similar plant samples, several features differ significantly from the rest in terms of the representation and abundance of certain plant foods. Based on the distribution of plant remains and information on feature formation in two particular features, we suggest that they represent special deposits related to mundane and/or ritual cleansing.

Rich ethnobiological study of antiquity is usually constrained by the limitations of the archaeological remains of plants and animals. Sometimes, ongoing tradition, images and texts add a symbolic dimension. Such a study has been done of  the Warka Vase, an iconic artifact of Mesopotamia. The lowest of three registers appears to represent the basis of Mesopotamian life: water, plants, and animals. Identification of the water and animals is relatively straightforward. In the absence of serious botanical study, the plants depicted are usually thought to be grain and flax. Analysis of the plant imagery in concert with that of archaic signs, botanical charactistics, and our understanding of Mesopotamian agriculture and tradition shows that the 'grain' is date palm and confirms the other plant as flax. Analysis based on these plant identifications demonstrates the composition of the imagery on the Vase has a gendered and political narrative structure.

NOTE: Scholarly paper on this topic is now available online:
Miller, Naomi F., Philip H. Jones, and Holly Pittman. 2015. Sign and image: representations of plants on the Warka Vase of early Mesopotamia. University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons, Philadelphia. http://repository.upenn.edu/penn_museum_papers/2

Archaeobotanical research over the past decades has revealed that bread wheat of a compact form, called "Ezo wheat" in Japan, was present in the Far East Asian region (Primorye in the Russian Far East, the Korean peninsula, and the Japanese archipelago) during the early stage of wheat cultivation. In response to the previous observations, carbonized wheat grains from the sites in the southern part of the Korean peninsula were measured and their sizes were compared across these sites and with other sites in East Asia. The examination indicates that grains dated over the period of AD 100e600 were considerably smaller than the modern specimens but were plumper than the previously reported Ezo wheat. The new data sets suggest that wheat with plumper kernels was introduced to the region no later than the Three-Kingdoms period (ca. AD 300e668) and continued to be cultivated until the Joseon period (1392e1910).

De nombreux chercheurs étudient la culture rubanée dont les traditions céramiques, lithiques et architecturales sont
aujourd’hui bien connues. Paradoxalement, le milieu végétal dans lequel arrivèrent, vers 5200 av. J.-C, les premiers
agro-pasteurs sédentaires d’Europe nord-occidentale, ainsi que leur économie végétale, ont été peu étudiés.
Neuf sites de Moyenne-Belgique ont fait l’objet d’analyses anthracologiques et carpologiques. Le peuplement
humain de la région s’est effectué en au moins deux étapes. A leur arrivée, les Rubanés ont exploité les principaux
constituants de la chênaie-frênaie : le chêne, le frêne et le noisetier. Lors de la seconde étape d’occupation, la
collecte en bois de feu s’est diversifiée et s’est orientée vers les lisières forestières composées des prunoïdées, du
sureau et surtout des pomoïdées (aubépines, pommiers...). Ainsi, les assemblages anthracologiques distinguent
les occupations «pionnières» des occupations «secondaires» et sont associés, pour chacune d’elle, à un mobilier
archéologique caractéristique. L’anthracologie indique un mode d’exploitation de la forêt original et se révèle
un véritable outil de chronologie relative au même titre que les décors de la céramique et la matière première
lithique. Les principales plantes cultivées par les Néolithiques sont d’origine proche-orientale. Il s’agit des blés vêtus
(amidonnier, engrain), des légumineuses (pois, lentille) et du lin. Le pavot somnifère est bien implanté dans la région.
Le consensus repose, pour le moment, sur une origine méditerranéenne de la plante. Cependant, la rareté des
découvertes de pavot en Méditerranée occidentale antérieures à celles d’Europe nord-occidentale tend à réviser ce
consensus. Au même titre que la culture matérielle et les éléments architecturaux rubanés, la carpologie témoigne
d’une économie agricole homogène sur une zone allant de la région rhénane au Bassin parisien, mais révèle aussi des
contacts extra-culturels et des particularités régionales concernant notamment les principales céréales cultivées.

Evidence for the histories of maize, bean, and squash in New York and the greater northeastern North America has changed dramatically over the past decade. Here I review the new lines of evidence and three models that can lead to better understandings of that new evidence.

Paleoethnobotany refers to the scientific study of the interaction between humans and plants in the past; this includes the study of human impacts on the environment, how the environment directed human practice, and cultural uses of plants. It is simultaneously a subfield of archaeology and ethnobotany, which, in turn, are subfields of anthropology (in the Ameri-can academic system) and botany or the plant sciences, respectively. In this sense, a paleoeth-nobotanist studies past human culture and plant life. In practice, this often consists of studying the remains of plants in archaeological sites, by a specialist, who draws upon methods and theoretical frameworks from both the biological and social sciences. In essence, paleoethnobotany is at the intersection of the interplay between living organisms and human culture. The term paleo-ethnobotany is also used synonymously with archaeobotany and advocates a multidisciplinary approach to studying human history. Specialists are required to mingle laboratory-produced data with historical texts, ethnographic analogies, cross-cultural comparisons, and a wide range of archaeobotanical data that are extracted from archaeological contexts, including ancient crafts made from plants, impressions of seeds and plant parts in ceramics or mudbrick, remains of plants in human paleofeces or in the stomach contents of preserved bodies, as well as artifacts or tools used to process or cultivate plants, such as grinding stones, farming tools, woodworking tools, digging sticks, loom weights or spindle whirls, and irrigation structures. The most widely studied topic within the field relates to human paleodiet, and how humans cultivated or foraged for, harvested, and consumed plants in the past, as well as what kinds of plants they chose to eat.

The analysis of archaeobotanical assemblages recovered in recent and older archaeological excavations conducted at several sites in southeastern Italy (Apani, Torre Guaceto -Br; Rocavecchia, Melendugno -Le; Piazza Palmieri, Monopoli -Ba; Scalo di Furno, Porto Cesareo -Le), have revealed the importance of acorn gathering and use in Bronze Age societies. A number of documentary sources describe the use of acorns as food, in both human and animal diets, although various other uses have been reported (as a tanning agent, medicine and so on). On the other hand the charred acorns from Bronze Age sites examined in this study were associated with domestic fireplaces, being found next to griddles and mixed with other edible plants such as cereals, legumes and other edible tree fruits). These observations suggest they played an important part in protohistoric economies. In order to address the role of oak fruits and to investigate processing methods we conducted biometric analyses and ethnobotanical comparisons. Data collected during morphometric studies were compared with modern acorns in order to identify the specific taxonomy of the archaeological cotyledons. Reference is made to ethnographic observations in order to decode the archaeological, archaeobotanical and taphonomical evidence regarding the manner of gathering and processing acorns in Bronze Age societies.

Вікентій В'ячеславович Хвойка та його внесок у вітчизняну археологію (до 150-річчя від дня народження): Тем. зб. наук .пр. / Редкол. Н.Г.Ковтанюк (відп.ред.) та ін. - К.: ТОВ “ІІІ, Лтд”, 2000. - 194 с. - ISBN 966-95669-4-0.

Збірник присвячено видатному вченому археологу В. Хвойці, з ім'ям якого пов'язано відкриття трипільської, зарубинецької та черняхівської культур.
Вміщені наукові дослідження сучасних вчених Інституту археології НАН України та музейників, які займаються вивченням наукової спадщини В.Хвойки, що понад 20 років свого життя присвятив дослідженню старожитностей Придніпров'я, збагатив археологічну науку України, відкривши цілий ряд нових культур.

Today, maize is acknowledged as a plant with a great culinary and industrial versatility. It also has a deep relationship with the native cultures of the Americas and is still a vital food source for hundreds millions of people worldwide. By means of starch grain extraction from ancient lithic artifacts used more than 8000 years ago, here we report what is so far the oldest documented occurrence of maize in highland South America. This study places maize, together with other important economic plants, in the southern Ecuadorian Andes during a period coinciding with the initial stage of maize diversification and long distance expansion after its domestication in southwestern Mexico. These results allow us to unravel an early episode of human innovation previously unknown for South America which is related to the first steps toward the full reshaping of human subsistence strategies in the continent.

This dissertation project examines for evidence of substantial differences in community and community identity, as expressed through culinary traditions and foodways, of Early and Middle Woodland populations in the western Great Lakes region from circa 100 BC to AD 400. The research compares culinary traditions and foodways of Early and Middle Woodland populations in southeastern Wisconsin using multiple lines of fined grained material data derived from the Finch site (47JE0902). As an open air Early to Middle Woodland (ca 100 BC to AD 400) domestic habitation, the Finch site serves as a case study for elucidating culinary traditions and foodways at the community level. Implementing a multi-faceted approach, this study integrates traditional plant macrobotanical studies, faunal analyses, ceramic morphological and use wear analyses, and absorbed chemical residue analyses to provide a comprehensive overview of the intersection between food and community in this region of North America.

La reconstrucción de la dieta de un grupo de habitantes de un pequeño
conjunto residencial de la antigua ciudad de Palenque, a través de un análisis multiproxy, nos acerca a las relaciones establecidas al interior y al exterior de dicho grupo social. A través de los diferentes restos materiales recuperados podemos inferir una compleja red económica y social la cual reflejará la disposición y disponibilidad de diversas especies vegetales y animales para la alimentación.

Recent advances in the archaeology of lowland South America are furthering our understanding of the Holocene development of plant cultivation and domestication, cultural niche construction, and relationships between environmental changes and cultural strategies of food production. This article offers new data on plant and landscape management and mobility in Southwestern Amazonia during a period of environmental change at the Middle to Late Holocene transition, based on archaeobotanical analysis of the Monte Castelo shellmound, occupied between 6000 and 650 yr BP and located in a modern, seasonally flooded savanna–forest mosaic. Through diachronic comparisons of carbonized plant remains, phytoliths, and starch grains, we construct an ecology of resource use and explore its implications for the long-term history of landscape formation, resource management practices, and mobility. We show how, despite important changes visible in the archaeological record of the shellmound during this...